Posted
by
Soulskill
on Monday May 09, 2011 @07:07PM
from the stay-a-while-and-listen dept.

During an earnings call this afternoon, Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime revealed the company's goals for testing and releasing the much-anticipated new chapter in the Diablo series.
"[Morhaime said], 'On the Diablo 3 front, I'm pleased to report that we began internal, company-wide testing last week. The game is looking great and we are currently targeting a Q3 launch for external beta testing. The development team is working hard to try to launch Diablo 3 this year, but I want to be clear. We do not have an official release date or window yet.' Details on the external beta are currently extremely limited, so we don't know the scope of how many testers will be involved or what the beta will include. It's hard to imagine that anything could match the gargantuan beta for StarCraft 2, but Blizzard has said that Diablo 3 will have plenty of online functionality, and that sort of functionality needs plenty of testers to succeed."

The development team is working hard to try to launch Diablo 3 this year, but I want to be clear. We do not have an official release date or window yet.

I don't care either way, when it comes then very nice, but could we hold off on these sort of posts until, say, a few months before it comes out in 2014?
Call me troll i don't care, i'm just sick of hyping up the hype that leads to endless post-pones that have been the norm in recent years.

I don't care either way, when it comes then very nice, but could we hold off on these sort of posts until, say, a few months before it comes out in 2014?Call me troll i don't care, i'm just sick of hyping up the hype that leads to endless post-pones that have been the norm in recent years.

I agree, and that's even accepting that Blizzard product delays are typically because they want to make the product as high quality as possible, not because they're a shit developer who needs the extra time to make their p

If only they released things when they were done now. Take StarCraft 2 for instance. Prior to Activision taking over we would not have seen SC2 released until all three races single player campaigns were in place. Now we are going to get charged 3 times to get the entire experience. I fear what they will do to get D3 out the door, and how much will be cut and us players will get charged for later. Because of them wanting to charge for each of the SC2 campaigns I'm taking a huge wait and see approach with an

Really, I think Blizzard figured that out all on their own after seeing how much money they make from Warcraft expansions. Folks like to blame Activision for anything they see Blizzard as doing "wrong", but it's not like Blizzard hadn't already figured out staggered release beforehand. It's not like World of Warcraft launched with the "entire experience" either, and that was well before Activision.

If anything, Blizzard identified that they can make better gameplay/story if they're concentrating on one race

That's certainly in their best financial interests to release this way, but it doesn't work for me. As such they now have to work harder for my gaming dollar.

The reason I didn't mention WoW is because an MMO is vastly different than a release such as a RTS or a Diablo like game. Blizz does have to maintain the back end for both (battle.net), but neither one has persistent worlds to play in and as such the expectations are different and always have been.

That's certainly in their best financial interests to release this way, but it doesn't work for me. As such they now have to work harder for my gaming dollar.

Can you accept that it works for others though? I'm not too much into the whole competitive online side of Starcraft, yet still bought WoL for the campaign. Granted, I didn't get to play as zerg (and played only a mock-protoss sort of thing) yet I still did not, in any way, shape, or form, feel cheated out of my money.

Exactly. Wings of Liberty was awesome, and there was more story and awesomeness in that "fragment" than in the entire SC1 campaign. Well worth the money, would spend it again, will pay for the other two parts and probably still want more.

I don't know, it seems to me like you're complaining over nothing. SC2 didn't feel like it was a third of a game to me. It's a full game with 2 planned expansions. Sorry you didn't get three races in your single player, but that doesn't mean it was shipped incomplete, it means they didn't give you exactly what you want. Seeing as how it is a multiplayer game at heart, I don't think it is that big of a deal. Nobody complains that SC1 was released without the Brood War campaign.

Not to mention they probably want to get at least something out before PoE [pathofexile.com] comes out because the games are likely to be in direct competition for customers, and due to the fact that PoE is free to play, it might be difficult to pull people away after the fact.

I'm a person who really just got SC2 for the single-player campaign. I'd have preferred more for sure, but it wasn't exactly short. I kind of wonder whether this would be an issue if they had traded some of the Terran missions for Zerg missions (they already had a few Protoss). Or if they had outright decided not to ever release expansions and this is the full campaign.

I think arguing you're being "charged 3 times to get the entire experience" is hollow They always had expansions, so you always had to

I think you missed my point. I bought SC1 and had three races worth of single player content. SC2 came out with just one: Terran. And they have told us that we will be buying 2 more expansions just to get the story for the remaining two races.

SC1 had an expansion and it included story lines for all three races. Do you see why I don't like the way they are doing things now? Both SC1 AND its expansion both had all three races from the start.

I haven't played SC 2, but how long in number of missions and hours of play is the Terran storyline, and how does that stack up against the number of missions & hours of play I n SC 1?

If it's 60 missions and 30 hours of play vs. 60 missions and 30 hours of play (just guestimating) then no biggie. But if it's only 20 missions and 10 hours of play vs. 60/30 then you have a fair point.

I haven't played SC 2, but how long in number of missions and hours of play is the Terran storyline

Apparently you haven't bothered to read anything about it either. It's 29, but not all can be played on a single run through (without going back to prior saves anyway). And if you spent 30 hours to get through the original then I'd say you are looking at a fairly long playtime on SC2. Just play through on hard the first time.

You make it sound like Starcraft 2 contains 1/3 of the content of Starcraft singleplayer-wise and that's not the case.

Starcraft 2 contains 29 missions(26 can be played through any particular play through). I believe there is one bonus mission but I have not played it.

Starcraft contained 30 missions. That is a slightly higher number and there were zerg missions as opposed to just Terran and Protoss as in Starcraft 2 I think people make a bigger deal out of breaking the game into three pieces. I prefer having

If only they released things when they were done now. Take StarCraft 2 for instance. Prior to Activision taking over we would not have seen SC2 released until all three races single player campaigns were in place.

Yeah, that's true, Activision has been a baleful influence on Blizzard.

I love Civilization. I've been a big fan of the series since I played Civ II at the age of 13 or so. Just the other day I enjoyed getting reacquainted with Alpha Centauri. But when I found out last year how Civilization V was being released—with every little civ and scenario nickel-and-dimed out as DLC, with a pitifully small selection of starting content for your fifty bucks and it being painfully obvious that they were withholding finished content to sell it to you later—I said "no thanks". So

Some day, when they're done shilling their so-called "expansion content" and the complete, ne-plus-ultra pack is available on Steam for $20 or $30, maybeâ"maybeâ"I'll buy it and find out if there was a good game under all the shameless greed.

If you liked Civ 2/3/4 and AC, IMHO, there really isn't. Combat got more intricate in some ways and simplified in others, and every other aspect of the game is drastically simplified.

I got SC2, and it's nice, but Bnet 2.0 pretty much soured me off it trying to get a really idiotic issue resolved (the name you enter in the dialog is permanent and unchangable - this was fixed a month later with an announcement of paid name changes - WTF? Fine print does not constitute adequate warning and reeks of nickel and diming).

The scary part is, they'e snagged Bungie with a 10-year deal as well, so there goes yet another good developer;

Bnet 2.0 pretty much soured me off it trying to get a really idiotic issue resolved (the name you enter in the dialog is permanent and unchangable - this was fixed a month later with an announcement of paid name changes

What the hell is wrong with you? That is not nickle and diming. Usually when I create an account I can't change my login. Thats pretty much standard. Can you randomly change your account information on, say, slashdot? (I'm not sure if you can or not, I'm just asking) The reason they give you one free name change (which you didn't mention) and charge for others is so that you don't keep changing your account name. Duh. If I can just change my name all the time it becomes easy to harass people, easy to disgui

I don't care either way, when it comes then very nice, but could we hold off on these sort of posts until, say, a few months before it comes out in 2014?Call me troll i don't care, i'm just sick of hyping up the hype that leads to endless post-pones that have been the norm in recent years.

I agree, and that's even accepting that Blizzard product delays are typically because they want to make the product as high quality as possible, not because they're a shit developer who needs the extra time to make their product barely salable. Or to chase a never-ending stream of complete revamps like a certain notable example.

"It's done when it's done" is a great mantra, but we already knew that. So "no official release date" is as non-newsworthy as possible.

You definitely delivered that message oddly. Your phrasing ("that's even accepting") strongly implies that one should NOT accept the premise. And if one does not accept the premise, one believes Blizzard is a shit developer.

The only other reply to my post understood what I was saying, by pointing out how Activision's influence has undermined Blizzard's "it's done when it's done" philosophy, which was understood to be a positive thing.

And then the only reply to you disagreed with you. So it's 2:1 against. Sorry! Maybe next time the "definitions by democracy" game will work out for you.;)

To be fair, it's expected - nay, highly anticipated - that Blizzard posts "soon" announcements rather than specific dates. Official dates are announced at Blizzcon (or Blizzard Invitational) and everything else is "soon". I think we'd be disappointed if they made an official date announcement outside of a Blizzcon.

I'm a little insulted you just compared COD to any Blizzard game. The reason Blizzard doesn't release very frequently is because they truly are artists. SC2 didn't need to come out before it did. I will take highly polished games once every decade rather than a bucket full of shit every year that is exactly the same as before just different geometry and lighting. 2.5 years? Fuck that, it should come out not when they think they can sell the most, but when they think people will still be playing over a decad

They will get higher sales numbers if they are late, IMHO - since Elder Scrolls V comes out in November, and it will probably be another 500+ hour game.

The launch date of Diablo 3 will not affect the sales. Other games will not affect Diablo 3's sales. Consider that Diablo 1, an unproven title at the time, ***missed Christmas***. The Christmas season is normally the most important sales period, missing Christmas has killed other games. However Diablo 1 was instantly a #1 best seller and set records for game sales.

People generally don't cruise down the game isle searching for something to buy and pick a Blizzard game. They generally make a special trip t

Isn't Torchlight II due out around the same time? That's a much more direct competitor given that it was designed by some of the same people behind Diablo I/II. Should be interesting to see if Runic Games tries to put out Torchlight II early since it will appeal to many of the same people (and it includes a multi-player option unlike Torchlight I.)

The "like Duke Nukem Forever" label gets bandied around a lot. However, the launch of DNF pre-orders on Steam yesterday triggered a conversation between myself and a few friends about what else has happened in gaming terms since DNF went into development in April 1997.

- The first Gran Turismo game was still a few months from release. Gran Turismo 5's development was often compared to DNF's, but it was the 5th main installment in the series to be released since work started on DNF.

I'm starting to think Blizzard is paying off Slashdot for coverage. Most of the game industry won't even get a passing mention on the frontpage, but if even a peep comes out of Blizzard then it's BREAKING NEWS.

This is the first page of results. I think if you keep clicking, you'll find plenty more announcements for other games popular in the geek community. Blizzard doesn't appear to have any sort of monopoly on this. So either, they're ALL paying, or it's just the editors/firehose trying to pick out what's likely to be of interest.

Could be related to Blizzard being the largest game company in the world

Blizzard may be bigger than some other publishers but not bigger than any of the console makers, including Nintendo which is a pure-play video and tabletop gaming company. Here are some market capitalizations to provide a ballpark estimate of where Blizzard stands relative to other companies in this industry:

Diablo (1, 2, and soon 3) has enough nerds who like it or want more that it is most certainly news that matters. Hell, I didn't get into D1 or D2 and I would LOVE to get in the D3 beta. It's OK to feed us from the hype machine if it's something we're genuinely interested in.

With this in mind, should we consider any announcement on any development carried out by a firm such as GE as form of advertisement? Short answer: No. We read Slashdot to be informed on the latest and greatest within our respective interests/industries.

I still play Diablo II as well. The varied characters and their diverse skill trees make for high degree of re-playability. And it looks like Diablo III's characters [blizzard.com] and their skills will be just as diverse. I'm already salivating over the Demon Hunter.

There is no "time" to be "on". If anyone has ever mentioned a specific date, they've pulled it out of their ass; some random blogtard at whatever fan or industry site is hardly credible or authoritative. Blizz has never promised that D3 would be out in 2010, 2011 or 2012. Saying "we'd like it to be this year" is not the same as "we are officially setting a date for this year", as Morhaime went to great pains to point out.

It could arrive in 2020 and still not be late, if Blizz never promised a specific rel

There is no "on time" because they haven't given a date. They've given a goal that they'd like to hit. Given Blizzard's past history, both with release dates and success of their games, we'll see it when they feel it's done and ready. It's a formula that they've used before with great success.

What's a Diablo?
I grew up with Diablo, I enjoyed Diablo II, but cummon! Can you not think of something a little more original? If the game ends up being so different to Diablo I/II that it's not really Diablo call it something else and let it stand on it's own merit. Stop mooching off the name. If the game is a modernized version of I/II then I'm not interested. I'll just go buy me a "been there done that ooooo pretty graphics" t-shirt.

You enjoyed Diablo 2, even though it was just a modernized Diablo. Same story here, only the modernization will be to an even greater extent. They're taking a formula that works, updating it with improved mechanics, and giving people more of what they want. What's wrong with that?

Diablo 2 added and changed a ton of stuff. Area's repopulating, Way Points, Unique and Champion Mob packs, gold going to a wallet instead of stacks in inventory, Stash for items and gold, crafting via Horadric Cube, a nearly monolithic skill system with three unique main branches for each class, Socketing and eventually runewords, and finally ammunition requirements. I can't remember clearly if mobs in D1 used any special abilities at all, I

What DRM have you run into with other Blizzard games? None currently have any DRM attached, unless you consider playing an online game online "DRM". >

The sole exception could be SC2 which you need a BattleNet account to activate (which, if you purchased it, is a one-off). It can then be played in offline mode. I don't really see any DRM that one could be "struggling" based on Blizzard's current behavior.

In fact, Blizzard recently went through stripping out the DRM from all their older games (Warcraft 3,

Are you being serious? Okay let me list off all the things SC2 does that I find to be jerk-ish, call them DRM or Flying Monkeys With Tophats, I don't really care they're asinine:1) Online activation for install (this one I'm cool with, especially if it means I don't need to type in a bloody CD key again... either or would be cool but whatever)2) Periodic activation every 30 days - this one seriously ticks me off after I've already activated once then wtf?3) Can only play offline/not logged in under guest account, prisoner on your own machine blah blah, also that play can't be translated to your battlenet account4) must make a battlenet account to install the game, and that comes with several onerous restrictions which I won't go into here5) no LAN - where I grew up, which is where my parents still live, which is the only place where I see all three of my brothers at the same time, there is no freaking internet. Now where I'm at the 'net is very nice, beyond nice, but I will never pay money for a game which asks me to be beholden to what the dev's thought was 'enabling piracy' when that feature is and has been part and parcel of games since I was old enough to hold a mouse, as regards LAN, I don't care if the shadow copy comes back or not, we can each buy a copy that's cool, but I want my game to just work, not install haxxorpatch.exe just to play the stupid thing, I hear DOW2:R has very nice LAN capabilities, guess which one I bought?

The reason I can live with a one-time on install online activation but not the periodic one, and not the must be logged into "really use it", and not the no LAN play is practical too: at my parents house we'd haul our machines to somewhere with a connection get the games working and installed, unplug, test, then haul them back home, ya it was a PITA but it worked. But with the periodic or always on stuff... that's no longer viable. And any dev' who thinks it's "ok because everybody has internet and if they don't they must live in the backwoods lol" will never see a red cent from my ass.

With that in mind:

The sole exception could be SC2 which you need a BattleNet account to activate (which, if you purchased it, is a one-off). It can then be played in offline mode

No LAN play, which is about half your complaint (although it's only #5, most of the rest of the text is then about the inconveniences this causes) is not DRM. It's simply no LAN play. You can play single player, or online, but not on LAN. LAN play is additional functionality which I would also like, but we knew it had no LAN play before it came out. That doesn't fall under "struggling with DRM".

The complaint in #3 relies on what you're complaining about in #4. "I can't earn achievements on my BattleNet acco

This is false dichotomy.* They didn't decide not to add LAN play to stop piracy. In fact, PIRATED versions *can* be played on LAN, as they connect to emulated servers.* If LAN was added it wouldn't increase piracy, as you still need to activate each copy, ruling out "casual copying".

Thus, lack of LAN play is not DRM. The activation system is, but we're not talking about activation. We're talking specifically about lack of LAN play. I noted activation as an exception in my original post well above. Both what

Contortions? The arguments I'm arguing against are also contorted against reality, so the complication of the explanation is unfortunately necessary. Alternatively, I could break it down to this:

You bought a game which says it requires the internet to play. The entire multiplayer experience has been built around centralized, online servers. All the complaints I've seen attached are about the fact it requires the internet to play.

Thus, the complaint becomes entirely subjective, and turns into "hey, I could h

Point 2 happens entirely automatically just by playing the game while online at least once every 30 days. It's a valid complaint, but hardly one I'm concerned with -- it's trivially easy to just install the game on 10-15 PCs, and given that the entire campaign can be played offline, I don't blame Blizzard for trying to ensure that people aren't just giving free installs to everyone else.

Do you care to clarify on 3 and 4?

3 is false in my experience, unless I'm reading it wrong. I can play in offline mode u

I didn't buy the game because of these... issues. So if 3 and 4 are more or less untrue then I guess my friends who bought it don't know what they're are talking about. But I'm dead positive 2 and 5 are true which is enough reason for me not to buy the game. And by not buy the game I don't mean hit the torrents, I refuse to sink to blizzards level.

Point 2 happens entirely automatically just by playing the game while online at least once every 30 days. It's a valid complaint, but hardly one I'm concerned with -- it's trivially easy to just install the game on 10-15 PCs, and given that the entire campaign can be played offline, I don't blame Blizzard for trying to ensure that people aren't just giving free installs to everyone else.

Okay, so it may not seem like a big deal if you have a decent net connection, heck even satellite would be fine, however if you don't it's a nightmare. Hence no s

> 2) Periodic activation every 30 days - this one seriously ticks me off after I've already activated once then wtf?

To save other people from googling, what the parent means is that if you want to play starcraft offline on a particular computer, you must have played starcraft online on that computer in the last 30 days.

I was panicing for a bit, thinking I'd just lost my battle.net profile, since I havent played sc2 for... a while...

I have refused to buy StarCraft II due to it being region lock and priced locally way above the exchange rate. The US version is I think $59.95 USD, the AU version is $89.95 AUD (=$96.85 USD). I'm not holding my breath that Diablo 3 will be priced appropriately. I refuse to pay a 60% premium for a digital download simply because of the country I live in.

Technically you're a complete loony. You pay more than everybody else because you technically buy two accounts: one SEA, and one NA. So you technically pay less than everybody who wants to buy two versions.
When buying the SEA version, you also get a a NA account/version.

That's what people were telling me about Starcraft 2. Then the game came out, and lo and behold, it was every bit as fun as the original. Better, even. I see no reason to think that D3 won't be just as good.

That's what people were telling me about Starcraft 2. Then the game came out, and lo and behold, it was every bit as fun as the original. Better, even. I see no reason to think that D3 won't be just as good.

Its not as good as SC1. Maybe its "OK" for people who play just 1v1/2v2, but for those who bought SC2 to play custom maps (UMS) its a HUUUUGE disappointment. There are no good maps, its flooded with simple TD and Nexus shit, and if there are any interesting ones, then then they are buried on the bottom of that pile of goo called "most popular". In old battlenet you saw list of currently open lobbies hosted by people and could choose from that. If you created lobby with never seen map then there was big chan

Only with Wine. All Wine bugs which affect Blizzard games are very fast fixed, hopefully that will also be the case with D3.
Concerning native Linux client, Blizzard doesn't want to publish it. There's a petition http://www.petitiononline.com/ibpfl/petition.html [petitiononline.com] but Blizzard doesn't care. It's cheaper that geeks do the job for them.